Amour
by CatsbytheGreat
Summary: Christian's thoughts on love after Satine has died.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Moulin Rouge or the characters. **

**Author's Note: This is rather like a stream-of-consciousness thing. I hope you enjoy it! **

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**Every single word is the truth. I wouldn't lie about something like that, something like love.

I wouldn't lie about someone like Satine.

I remember her, and she's almost beyond describing. I could describe her pale skin, so pale that at times it should have looked unhealthy to me, but I was so wrapped up in ideals of love that I didn't notice. Her hair, red as a flame, flowing down her back or onto my pillows as we 'rehearsed' in my garret, or through my fingers as I whispered how much I loved her. Her lips, rose red, or should I say blood red? It doesn't matter. Her lips, the things she said, the things I hated and the things I loved, and the way she kissed me. And the way she died…

I almost felt like I was being mocked, when she died. At the funeral, stupid things like "Love lifts us up where we belong" and "Love is like oxygen" and "All we need is love", and especially "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved and return", all told to me beside her grave, where they meant nothing because clearly they couldn't save her. My love. My love meant nothing.

Then I realised they were _my_ stupid words being repeated back to me, and how was I so foolish? I wondered that, I wondered how I could have honestly believed all those things about love.

Yet I still loved her then, and I still love her now.

That's the funny thing about love. I didn't want to believe in it after the funeral, but I couldn't deny its existence. If love didn't exist, then I wouldn't have hurt so much.

Everything I tell you about love is true, whether you want to believe it or not.

Even those stupid things I said, that were said back to me in a futile attempt at comfort, those stupid things are true. They are what happen when love is at its best. That is how most people see love, but they are naïve if it's the only way they can see it.

I've seen much more. You won't like what I tell you, but hear it, because it's true, and it is something everyone must know, but no one ever knows until it's too late.

Love is cruel, and love can kill, and love can separate. It nearly separated me and Satine. She loved me, she had to save me, and she nearly broke my heart because she loved me. And then, here's the cruel thing, love broke my heart, too, when she died. It works both ways. Love can corrupt and it can make a man lose his innocence, and it can hurt you worse than any wound can, and it can kill you.

Except, the way love kills you is worse than anything physical, because you don't actually die, but your soul does. Your heart breaks and you wish to die, but you must live with the torment or kill yourself. Love leaves you with that choice, sometimes, because your lover is dead. Sometimes you must choose whether to move on or to try and find your love again. And your heart breaks and breaks and breaks…

That was how it was for me.

Until I wrote our story.

I won't lie to you.

Love is mysterious. I have finished my story, and I find myself with less of a broken heart. The things that I said are true, because love did wonderful things for me. It nearly destroyed me, but I'm still here, and Satine told me to write our story and she would have wanted me to move on with my life, to _live_. And to _love_.

I have seen the best and worst of love. I have flown to heights that few others have reached before me, and sunk to lows that most people would not want to go, and I have survived. All because of love.

I am less naïve now.

I was shown love, and now I know what love is. I know how to love, and I know what it is to be loved, and at first I didn't realise it. I didn't think that I could ever love again, or that I could live, or that the world would ever turn for me. And now that I've finished our story…I know I've been given something not many people have. The gift of love.

It is still the same thing I wrote about when I first arrived in Paris. I'm not quite sure how to feel about it. But I can't let it go to waste, because it was that _good_.

It is strange, how something so good can destroy a man, but perhaps it is because we don't understand it. I still don't understand it. If I understood love, if I understood life, perhaps I might have handled this better. But at least now I can try.

Now I know what _true_ love is. It is everything I described, and more. It is all we will never understand.

I can tell you nothing but the truth.

It is _love_.


End file.
